The new army in training

THE NEW ARMY IN
TRAINING

BY

RUDYARD KIPLING

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1915

PRICE SIXPENCE NET

.s

THE MEN AT WORK

f

The ore, the furnace and the hammer are all that is needed
for a sword. Native proverb.

THIS was a cantonment one had never seen
bef ore, and the greyAaired military police-'
man could give no help.

4 My experience/ he spoke detachedly, 'is that
you'll find everything everywhere* Is it any
particular corps you're looking for ? '

4 Not in the least/ I said*

4 Then you're all right* You can't miss getting
something/ He pointed generally to the North
Camp* 4 It's like floods in a town, isn't it ? '

He had hit the just word* All known marks
in the place were submerged by troops* Parade*
grounds to their utmost limits were crowded with
them ; rises and sky-lines were furred with them,
and the length of the roads heaved and rippled
like bicycle'chains with blocks of men on the move*

The voice of a sergeant in the torment reserved

m i B

305473

THE NEW ARMY

for sergeants at roll-call boomed across a bunker*
He was calling over recruits to a specialist corps*

'But I've called you once!' he snapped at a
man in leggings*

4 But I'm Clarke Two/ was the virtuous reply*

'Oh, you are, are you?' He pencilled the
correction with a scornful mouth* out of one
corner of which he added* 444 Sloppy" Clarke!
You're all Clarkes or Watsons to-day* You don't
know your own names* You don't know what
corps you're in* (This was bitterly unjust* for
they were squinting up at a biplane*) You don't
know anything*'

'Mm!' said the military policeman* 'The
more a man has in his head, the harder it is for
him to manage his carcass at first* I'm glad I
never was a sergeant* Listen to the instructors !
Like rooks* ain't it ? '

There was a mile of sergeants and instructors*
varied by company officers* all at work on the
ready material under their hands* They grunted*
barked, yapped* expostulated* and* in rare cases,
purred, as the lines broke and formed and wheeled
over the vast maidan* When companies numbered
off one could hear the tone and accent of every
walk in life, and maybe half the counties of
England, from the deep'throated 4 Woon ' of the
north to the sharp, half ^whistled Devonshire 4 Tu*'
And as the instructors laboured* so did the men*

THE MEN AT WORK

with a passion to learn as passionately as they
were taught*

Presently, in the drift of the foot^traffic down
the road, there came another grey Chaired man, one
foot in a bright slipper, which showed he was an
old soldier cherishing a sore toe* He drew along*
side and considered these zealous myriads*

4 Good ? ' said I, deferentially*

4 Yes/ he said* 'Very good' then, half to
himself : ' Quite different, though/ A pivot^man
near us had shifted a little, instead of marking time,
on the wheel* His face clouded, his lips moved*
Obviously he was cursing his own clumsiness*

' That's what I meant/ said the veteran*
4 Innocent ! Innocent I Mark you, they ain't doin'
it to be done with it and get off* They're doin' it
because because they want to do it*'

4 Wake up ! Wake up there, Isherwood ! ' This
was a young subaltern's reminder flung at a back
which straightened itself* That one human name
coming up out of all that maze of impersonal
manoeuvring stuck in the memory like wreckage
on the ocean*

4 An' it wasn't 'ardly even necessary to caution
Mister Isherwood/ my companion commented*
4 Prob'ly he's bitterly ashamed of 'imself *'

I asked a leading question because the old
soldier told me that when his toe was sound, he,
too, was a military policeman*

3

THE NEW ARMY

4 Crime ? Crime ? ' said he, 4 They don't know
what crime is that lot don't none of 'em I ' He
mourned over them like a benevolent old Satan
looking into a busy Eden, and his last word was
4 Innocent I*

The car worked her way through miles of
men men routexmarching, going to dig or build
bridges, or wrestle with stores and transport four
or five miles of men, and every man with eager
eyes. There was no music not even drums and
fifes* I heard nothing but a distant skirl of the
pipes. Trust a Scot to get his national weapon as
long as there is a chief in the North I Admitting
that war is a serious business, specially to the man
who is being fought for, and that it may be right
to carry a long face and contribute to relief funds
which should be laid on the National Debt, it
surely could do no harm to cheer the men with a
few bands. Half the money that has been spent
in treating, for example* * . .

THE NORTH IN BLUE

There was a moor among woods with a pond
in a hollow, the centre of a world of tents whose
population was North*Country. One heard it
from far off.

'Yo' mun trail t' pick an' t' rifle at t' same
time. Try again,' said the instructor*

4

THE MEN AT WORK

An isolated company tried again with set
seriousness, and yet again. They were used to
the pick won their living by it, in fact and so,
favoured it more than the rifle ; but miners don't
carry picks at the trail by instinct, though they can
twiddle their rifles as one twiddles walking-sticks.

They were clad in a blue garb that disguised
all contours ; yet their shoulders, backs, and loins
could not altogether be disguised, and these were
excellent. Another company, at physical drill in
shirt and trousers, showed what superb material
had offered itself to be worked upon, and how
much poise and directed strength had been added
to that material in the past few months. When
the New Army gets all its new uniform, it will
gaze at itself like a new Narcissus, But the
present kit is indescribable. That is why, English
fashion, it has been made honourable by its
wearers ; and our world in the years to come will
look back with reverence as well as affection on
those blue slops and that epileptic cap. One fan*
seeing commandant who had special facilities has
possessed himself of brass buttons, thousands of
f em, which he has added to his men's outfit for
the moral effect of (a) having something to clean,
and (b) of keeping it so. It has paid. The
smartest regiment in the Service could not do
itself justice in such garments, but I managed to
get a view of a battalion, coming in from a walk,

5

THE NEW ARMY

at a distance which more or less subdued the er
uniform, and they moved with the elastic swing
and little quick ripple that means so much* A
miner is not supposed to be as good a marcher as
a townsman, but when he gets set to time and
pace and learns due economy of effort, his
developed back and shoulder muscles take him
along very handsomely* Another battalion fell
in for parade while I watched, again at a distance*
They came to hand quietly and collectedly enough,
and with only that amount of pressing which is
caused by fear of being late* A platoon or
whatever they call it was giving the whole of its
attention to its signalling instructors, with the air
of men resolved on getting the last flicker of the
last cinema^film for their money* Crime in the
military sense they do not know any more than
their fellow^innocents up the road* It is hopeless
to pretend to be other than what one is, because
one's soul in this life is as exposed as one's body*
It is futile to tell civilian lies there are no civilians
to listen and they have not yet learned to tell
Service ones without being detected* It is useless
to sulk at any external condition of affairs, because
the rest of the world with which a man is concerned
is facing those identical conditions* There is neither
poverty nor riches, nor any possibility of pride,
except in so far as one may do one's task a little
better than one's mate*

6

THE MEN AT WORK

DUTIES AND DEVELOPMENTS

In the point of food they are extremely well
looked af ter, quality and quantity, wet canteen and
dry* Drafts come in all round the clock, and they
have to be fed; late guards and sentries want
something hot at odd times, and the big marquee^
canteen is the world's gathering-place, where food,
life's first interest to man in hard work, is thoroughly
discussed* They can get outside of a vast o' vittles*
Thus, a contractor who delivers ten thousand
rations a day stands, by deputy at least, in the
presence of just that number of rather fit, long, deep
men* They are what is called 4 independent f a
civilian weakness which they will learn to blush
over in a few months, and to discourage among
later recruits ; but they are also very quick to pick
up dodges and tricks that make a man more com-
fortable in camp life, and their domestic routine
runs on wheels* It must have been hard at first
for civilians to see the necessity for that continuous,
apparently pernickity, house-maiding and 4 follow"
ing'Up ' which is vital to the comfort of large bodies
of men in confined quarters* In civil life men leave
these things to their womenfolk, but where women
are not, officers, inspecting tents, feet, and suchlike,
develop a she-side to their head, and evidently
make their non-commissioned officers and men
develop it too* A good soldier is always a bit of an

7

THE NEW ARMY

old maid* But, as I heard a private say to a
sergeant in the matter of some kit chucked into a
corner : ' Yo' canna keep owt redd up ony proper
gate on a sand-hill/ To whom his superior
officer : 4 Ah know yo' canna', but yo' mun try,
Billy/

And Heaven knows they are trying hard enough
men, n.c*o/s, and officers with all the masked
and undervoiced effort of our peoples when we
are really at work They stand at the very be-
ginning of things ; creating out of chaos, meeting
emergencies as they arise ; handicapped in every
direction, and overcoming every handicap by simple
goodwill, humour, self-sacrifice, commonxsense,
and such trumpery virtues* I watched their faces
in the camp, and at lunch looked down a line of
some twenty men in the mess-tent, wondering how
many would survive to see the full splendour and
significance of the work here so nobly begun* But
they were not interested in the future beyond their
next immediate job* They ate quickly and went
out to it, and by the time I drove away again I was
overtaking their battalions on the road* Not un-
related units lugged together for foot-slogging, but
real battalions, of a spirit in themselves which
defied even the blue slops wave after wave of
proper men, with undistracted eyes* who never
talked a word about any war* But not a note of
music and they North-countrymen I
8

II

IRON INTO STEEL

Thanda lohd garam lohe ko marta hai (Cold iron will cut
hot iron).

A^ 1 the next halt I fell into Scotland blocks
and blocks of it a world of precise'spoken,
thin^lipped men, with keen eyes. They
gave me directions which led by friendly stages to
the heart of another work of creation and a huge
drill' shed where the miniature rifles were busy*
Few things are duller than Morris^tube practice in
the shed, unless it be judging triangles of error
against blank^walls* I thought of the military
policeman with the sore toe ; for these 4 innocents f
were visibly enjoying both games. They sighted
over the sand * bags with the gravity of surveyors,
while the instructors hurled knowledge at them like
sling'Stones.

4 Man, d'ye see your error ? Step here, man,
and Fll show ye/ Teacher and taught glared at
each other like theologians in full debate ; for this
is the Scot's way of giving and getting knowledge.

9

THE NEW ARMY

At the miniature targets squad after squad rose
from beside their deadly -earnest instructors, gathered
up their target-cards* and whisperingly compared
them, five heads together under a window*

'Aye, that was where I loosed too soon/ 'I
misdoubt I took too much o' the foresight/ Not
a word of hope and comfort in their achievements*
Nothing but calvinistic self-criticism.

These men ran a little smaller than the North-
country folk down the road* but in depth of chest*
girth of fore-arm* biceps* and neck-measurement
they were beautifully level and well up ; and the
squads at bayonet-practice had their balance* drive*
and recover already* As the light failed one noticed
the whites of their eyes turning towards their
instructors* It reminded one that there is always
a touch of the cateran in the most docile Scot, even
as the wolf persists in every dog*

4 And what about crime ? ' I demanded*

There was none* They had not joined to play
the fool. Occasionally a few unstable souls who
have mistaken their vocation try to return to civil
life by way of dishonourable discharge* and think
it 'funny' to pile up offences* The New Army
has no use for those people either* and attends to
them on what may be called 'democratic lines/
which is all the same as the old barrack-room court-
martial* Nor does it suffer fools gladly* There is no
time to instruct them* They go to other spheres,

10

IRON INTO STEEL

There was, or rather is, a man who intends to
join a certain battalion* He joined it once, scraped
past the local doctor, and was drafted into the
corps, only to be hove out for varicose veins* He
went back to his accommodating doctor, repeated
the process, and was again rejected* They are
waiting for him now in his third incarnation ; both
sides are equally determined* And there was
another Scot who joined, served awhile, and left,
as he might have left a pit or a factory* Somehow
it occurred to him that explanations were required,
so he wrote to his commanding officer from his
home address and asked him what he recommended
him to do* The C*O*, to his infinite credit, wrote
back : 4 Suppose you rejoin/ which the man did,
and no more said* His punishment, of course,
will come to him when he realises what he has
done* If he does not then perish in his self-contempt
(he has a good conceit of himself) he will make
one first-rate non-commissioned officer*

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

I had the luck to meet a Sergeant-Major, who
was the Sergeant-Major of one's dreams* He had
just had sure information that the kilts for his
battalion were coming in a few days, so, after
three months' hard work, life smiled upon him*
From kilts one naturally went on to the pipes*

11

THE NEW ARMY

The battalion had its pipes a very good set*
How did it get them f Well, there was, of course,
the Duke* They began with him. And there
was a Scots lord concerned with the regiment.
And there was a leddy of a certain clan connected
with the battalion. Hence the pipes. Could any^
thing be simpler or more logical ? And when the
kilts came the men would be different creatures.
Were they good men, I asked. ' Yes. Verra good.
Wha's to mislead 'em f f said he.

4 Old soldiers/ I suggested, meanly enough.
4 Rejoined privates of long ago/

4 Ay, there might have been a few such in the
beginning, but they'd be more useful in the Special
Reserve Battalions. Our boys are good boys,
but, ye'll understand, they've to be handled just
handled a little.' Then a subaltern came in, loaded
with regimental forms, and visibly leaning on the
Sergeant < Major, who explained, clarified, and
referred them on the proper quarters.

'Does the work come back to you?' I asked,
for he had been long in pleasant civil employ*

* Ay. It does that. It just does that/ And he
addressed the fluttering papers, lists, and notes,
with the certainty of an old golfer on a well-known
green.

Squads were at bayonet practice in the square*
(They like bayonet practice, especially after looking
at pictures in the illustrated dailies.) A new draft
12

IRON INTO STEEL

was being introduced to its rifles* The rest were
getting ready for evening parade. They were all
in khaki, so one could see how they had come on
in the last ten weeks* It was a result the meekest
might have been proud of, but the New Army
does not cultivate useless emotions* Their officers
and their instructors worked over them patiently
and coldly and repeatedly, with their souls in the
job : and with their soul* mind, and body in the
same job the men took soaked up the instruction*
And that seems to be the note of the New Army*

WHAT THE ARMY DOES AND THINKS

They have joined for good reason* For that
reason they sleep uncomplainingly double thick on
barrack floors, or lie like herrings in the tents and
sing hymns and other things when they are flooded
out* They walk and dig half the day or all the
night as required ; they wear though they will
not eat anything that is issued to them ; they
make themselves an organised and kindly life out
of a few acres of dirt and a little canvas ; they keep
their edge and anneal their discipline under con*
ditions that would depress a fox-terrier and
disorganise a champion football team* They
ask nothing in return save work and equipment*
And being what they are, they thoroughly and

13

THE NEW ARMY

unfeignedly enjoy what they are doing ; and they
purpose to do much more*

But they also think. They think it vile that so
many unmarried young men who are not likely
to be affected by Government allowances should
be so shy about sharing their life* They discuss
these young men and their womenfolk by name,
and imagine rude punishments for them, suited to
their known characters. They discuss* too, their
elders who in time past warned them of the sin of
soldiering* These men* who live honourably and
simply under the triple vow of Obedience* Temper*
ance* and Poverty* recall* not without envy* the
sort of life which well 'kept moralists lead in the
unpicketed, unsentried towns; and it galls them
that such folk should continue in comfort and
volubility at the expense of good men's lives* or
should profit greasily at the end of it all* They
stare hard, even in their blue slops, at white-collared,
bowler'hatted young men, who, by the way, are
just learning to drop their eyes under that gaze*
In the third-class railway carriages they hint that
they would like explanations from the casual 4 nut/
and they explain to him wherein his explanations
are unconvincing* And when they are home on
leave, the slack-jawed son of the local shop-keeper,
and the rising nephew of the big banker, and the
dumb but cunning carter's lad receive instruction
or encouragement suited to their needs and the

14

IRON INTO STEEL

nation's. The older men and the officers will tell
you that if the allowances are made more liberal we
shall get all the men we want* But the younger
men of the New Army do not worry about allow'
ances or, for that matter, make 'em 1

There is a gulf already opening between those
who have joined and those who have not ; but we
shall not know the width and the depth of that
gulf till the war is oven The wise youth is he
who jumps it now and lands in safety among the
trained and armed men*

15

Ill

GUNS AND SUPPLY

Under all and after all the Wheel carries everything.-
Proverb.

ONE had known the place for years as a
picturesque old house, standing in a peace^
ful park; had watched the growth of
certain young oaks along a new-laid avenue, and
applauded the owner's enterprise in turning a
stretch of pasture to plough. There are scores of
such estates in England which the motorist, through
passing so often, comes to look upon almost as his
own* In a single day the brackened turf between
the oaks and the iron road^fence blossomed into
tents, and the drives were all cut up with hoofs
and wheels. A little later, one's car sweeping
home of warm September nights was stopped by
sentries, who asked her name and business; for
the owner of that retired house and discreetly
wooded park had gone elsewhere in haste, and
his estate was taken over by the military.
Later still, one met men and horses arguing with

16

GUNS AND SUPPLY

each other for miles about that countrywide ; or the
car would be flung on her brakes by artillery
issuing from cross-lanes clean batteries jingling
off to their work on the Downs, and hungry ones
coming back to meals* Every day brought the
men and the horses and the weights behind them
to a better understanding, till in a little while the
car could pass a quarter of a mile of them with'
out having to hoot more than once*

'Why are you so virtuous ?' she asked of a
section encountered at a blind and brambly corner*
4 Why do you obtrude your personality less than
an average tax-cart ? '

^Because/ said a driver* his arm flung up to
keep the untrimmed hedge from sweeping his cap
off* 4 because those are our blessed orders* We
don't do it for love/

^ No on accuses the Gunner of maudlin affection
for anything except his beasts and his weapons*
He hasn't the time* He serves at least three
jealous gods his horse and all its saddlery and
harness ; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is
more important than men's lives ; and, when these
have been attended to, the never-ending mystery
of his art commands him*

It was a wettish* windy day when I visited the

so4ong'known house and park* Cock pheasants

ducked in and out of trim rhododendron clumps,

neat gates opened into sacredly preserved vegetable

17 c

THE NEW ARMY

gardens, the many-coloured leaves of specimen
trees pasted themselves stickily against sodden tent
walls, and there was a mixture of circus smells
from the horse-lines and the faint, civilised breath
of chrysanthemums in the potting sheds* The
main drive was being relaid with a foot of flint ;
the other approaches were churned and pitted under
the gun wheels and heavy supply wagons. Great
breadths of what had been well-kept turf between
unbrowsed trees were blanks of slippery brown
wetness, dotted with picketed horses and field*
kitchens* It was a crazy mixture of stark necessity
and manicured luxury, all cheek by jowl, in the
undiscriminating rain*

SERVICE CONDITIONS

The cook-houses, store-rooms, forges, and work-
shops were collections of tilts, poles, rick-cloths, and
odd lumber, beavered together as on service* The
officers' mess was a thin, soaked marquee*

Less than a hundred yards away were dozens of
vacant, well-furnished rooms in the big brick house,
of which the Staff furtively occupied one corner*
There was accommodation for very many men in
its stables and out-houses alone; or the whole
building might have been gutted and rearranged for
barracks twice over in the last three months*

Scattered among the tents were rows of half-

18

GUNS AND SUPPLY

built tin sheds, the ready-prepared lumber and the
corrugated iron lying beside them, waiting to be
pieced together like children's toys* But there
were no workmen* I was told that they had come
that morning, but had knocked off because it was
wet

4 1 see* And where are the batteries?" I de*-
manded*

'Out at work, of course* They've been out
since seven*'

4 How shocking I In this dreadful weather, too I '

4 They took some bread and cheese with them.
They'll be back about dinner-time if you care to
wait* Here's one of our field-kitchens*'

Batteries look after their own stomachs, and are
not catered for by contractors* The cook-house
was a wagon'tilt* The wood, being damp, smoked
a good deal* One thought of the wide, adequate
kitchen ranges and the concrete passages of the
service quarters in the big house just behind* One
even dared to think Teutonically of the perfectly
good panelling and the thick hard-wood floors that
could

4 Service conditions, you see,' said my guide, as
the cook inspected the baked meats and the men
inside the wagon-tilt grated the carrots and prepared
the onions* It was old work to them after all
these months done swiftly, with the clean economy
of effort that camp life teaches*

19

THE NEW ARMY

4 What are these lads when they 're at home ? '
I inquired*

4 Londoners chiefly all sorts and conditions/

The cook in shirt sleeves made another investi'
gation* and sniffed judicially* He might have
been cooking since the Peninsular* He looked at
his watch and across towards the park gates* He
was responsible for one hundred and sixty rations,
and a battery has the habit of saying quite all that
it thinks of its food*

4 How often do the batteries go out ? * I continued*

4 'Bout five days a week* You see* we're being
worked up a little/

4 And have they got plenty of ground to work
over ? '

4 Oh yes-s/

4 What's the difficulty this time ? Birds ? '

'No; but we got orders the other day not to
go over a golf-course* That rather knocks the
bottom out of tactical schemes*'

Perfect shamelessness* like perfect virtue* is
impregnable ; and* after all* the lightnings of this
war, which have brought out so much resolve and
self-sacrifice* must show up equally certain souls
and institutions that are irredeemable*

The weather took off a little before noon* The
carpenters could have put in a good half-day's
work on the sheds, and even if they had been
rained upon they had roofs with fires awaiting

20

GUNS AND SUPPLY

their return* The batteries had none of these
things*

THE GUNNER AT HOME

They came in at last far down the park, heralded
by that unmistakable half-grumble, half-grunt of
guns on the move* The picketed horses heard it
first* and one of them neighed long and loud* which
proved that he had abandoned civilian habits*
Horses in stables and mews seldom do more than
snicker* even when they are halves of separated
pairs* But these gentlemen had a corporate life of
their own now* and knew what * pulling together '
means*

When a battery comes into camp it 4 parks ' all
six guns at the appointed place* side by side in one
mathematically straight line* and the accuracy of
the alignment is, like ceremonial-drill with the Foot,
a fair test of its attainments* The ground was no
treat for parking* Specimen trees and draining
ditches had to be avoided and circumvented* The
gunners* their reins, the guns* the ground, were
equally wet, and the slob dropped away like gruel
from the brake-shoes* And they were Londoners
clerks, mechanics, shop assistants, and delivery
men anything and everything that you please*
But they were all home and at home in their
saddles and seats* They said nothing; their
officers said little enough to them* They came in

21

THE NEW ARMY

across what had once been turf; wheeled with
tight traces; halted, unhooked; the wise teams
stumped off to their pickets, and, behold, the six
guns were left precisely where they should have
been left to the fraction of an inch* You could
see the wind blowing the last few drops of wet
from each leather muzzle^cover at exactly the same
angle* It was all old known evolutions, taken
unconsciously in the course of their day's work by
men well abreast of it.

4 Our men have one advantage/ said a voice*
4 As Territorials they were introduced to unmade
horses once a year at training* So they've never
been accustomed to made horses*'

'And what do the horses say about it all?' I
asked, remembering what I had seen on the road
in the early days*

4 They said a good deal at first, but our chaps
could make allowances for 'em* They know now*'

Allah never intended the Gunner to talk* His
own arm does that for him* The batteries off'
saddled in silence, though one noticed on all sides
little quiet caresses between man and beast
affectionate nuzzlings and nose^slappings* Surely
the Gunner's relation to his horse is more intimate
even than the cavalryman's ; for a lost horse only
turns cavalry into infantry, but trouble in a gun
team may mean death all round* And this is the
Gunner's war* The young wet officers said so

22

GUNS AND SUPPLY

joyously as they passed to and fro picking up
scandal about breast^straps and breechings, examin*
ing the collars of ammunition^wagon teams, and
listening to remarks on shoes* Local blacksmiths,
assisted by the battery itself, do the shoeing.
There are master smiths and important farriers,
who have cheerfully thrown up good wages to
help the game, and their horses reward them by
keeping fit* A fair proportion of the horses are
aged there was never a Gunner yet satisfied with
his team or its rations till he had left the battery
but they do their work as steadfastly and whole^
heartedly as the men, I am persuaded the horses
like being in society and working out their daily
problems of draught and direction. The English,
and Londoners particularly, are the kindest and
most reasonable of folk with animals. If it were
not our business strictly to underrate ourselves for
the next few years, one would say that the Territorial
batteries had already done wonders. But perhaps
it is better to let it all go with the grudging admis*
sion wrung out of a wringing wet bombardier,
4 Well, it isn't so dam' bad considering

I left them taking their dinner in mess tins to their
tents, with a strenuous afternoon's cleaning* up
ahead of them. The big park held some thousands
of men, I had seen no more than a few hundreds,
and had missed the howitzer^batteries after all,

A cock pheasant chaperoned me down the drive,

23

THE NEW ARMY

complaining loudly that where he was used to walk
with his ladies under the beech trees, some unsport^
ing people had built a miniature landscape with
tiny villages, churches, and factories, and came
there daily to point cannon at it

4 Keep away from that place/ said 1, 4 or you'll
find yourself in a fidd Jdtchen/

4 Not me ! ' he crowed. 4 I'm as sacred as golf <

courses/

MECHANISM AND MECHANICS

There was a little town a couple of miles down
the road where one used to lunch in the old days,
and had the hotel to oneself* Now there are six
ever * changing officers in billet there, and the
astonished houses quiver all day to traction engines
and high'piled lorries. A unit of the Army Service
Corps and some mechanical transport lived near
the station, and fed the troops for twenty miles
around.

'Are your people easy to find?' I asked of a
wandering private, with the hands of a sweep, the
head of a Christian among lions, and suicide in
his eye.

'Well, the A.S.C. are in the Territorial Drill
Hall for one thing ; and for another you're likely
to hear us I There's some motors come in from
Bulford/ He snorted and passed on, smelling of
petrol,

24

GUNS AND SUPPLY

The drill' shed was peace and comfort The
A*S*C* were getting ready there for pay-day and
for a concert that evening* Outside in the wind
and the occasional rain-spurts, life was different*
The Bulford motors and some other crocks sat on
a side "road between what had been the local
garage and a newly ^erected workshop of creaking
scaf fold - poles and bellying slatting rick -cloths,
where a forge glowed and general repairs were
being effected* Beneath the motors men lay on
their backs and called their friends to pass them
spanners, or, for pity's sake, to shove another
sack under their mud-wreathed heads*

A corporal, who had been nine years a fitter
and seven in a city garage, briefly and briskly
outlined the more virulent diseases that develop
in Government rolling-stock* (I heard quite a lot
about Bulford*) Hollow voices from beneath
eviscerated gear-boxes confirmed him* We with'
drew to the shelter of the rick-cloth workshop
that corporal ; the sergeant who had been a
carpenter, with a business of his own, and,
incidentally, had served through the Boer War;
another sergeant who was a member of the Master
Builders' Association; and a private who had
also been fitter, chauffeur, and a few other things*
The third sergeant, who kept a poultryxfarm in
Surrey, had some duty elsewhere*

A man at a carpenter's bench was finishing

25

THE NEW ARMY

a spoke for a newly^painted cart* He squinted
along it*

'That's funny/ said the master builder* 'Of
course in his own business he'd chuck his job
sooner than do wood' work. But it's all funny/

'What I grudge/ a sergeant struck in, 'is havin'
to put mechanics to loading and unloading beef*
That's where modified conscription for the beauties
that won't roll up 'Id be useful to z/s* We want
hewers of wood* we do* And I'd hew 'em ! '

4 1 want that file*' This was a private in a
hurry* come from beneath an unspeakable Bulf ord*
Some one asked him musically if he ' would tell
his wife in the morning who he was with tonight/

' You'll find it in the tookchest/ said the sergeant*
It was his ov/n sacred tool'chest which he had
contributed to the common stock*

'And what sort of men have you got in this
unit ? ' I asked*

'Every sort you can think of* There isn't
a thing you couldn't have made here if you wanted
to* But ' the corporal* who had been a f itter,
spoke with fervour ' you can't expect us to make
big'ends, can you ? That f ive^ton Bulford lorry
out there in the wet '

'And she isn't the worst/ said the master
builder* ' But it's all part of the game* And so
funny when you come to think of it* Me painting
carts* and certificated plumbers loading frozen beef ! 9

26

GUNS AND SUPPLY

4 What about the discipline ? ' I asked

The corporal turned a fitter's eye on me* 'The
mechanism is the discipline/ said he, with most
profound truth. 4 Jockeyin' a sick car on the road
is discipline, too* What about the discipline ? ' He
turned to the sergeant with the carpenter's chest
There was one sergeant of Regulars, with twenty
years' service behind him and a knowledge of
human nature. He struck in.

4 You ought to know. YouVe just been made
corporal/ said that sergeant of Regulars.

4 Well, there's so much which everybody knows
has got to be done that that why, we all turn
in and do it/ quoth the corporal. 4 1 don't have
any trouble with my lot.'

4 Yes; that's how the case stands/ said the
sergeant of Regulars. 4 Come and see our stores.'

They were beautifully arranged in a shed which
felt like a monastery after the windy, clashing
world without ; and the young private who acted
as checker he came from some railway office
had the thin, keen face of the cleric.

4 We're in billets in the town/ said the sergeant
who had been a carpenter. 4 But I'm a married
man* I shouldn't care to have men billeted on us
at home, an' I don't want to inconvenience other
people. So I've knocked up a bunk for myself on
the premises. It's handier to the stores, too/

27

THE NEW ARMY

'THE HUMOUR OF IT'

We entered what had been the local garage*
The mechanical transport were in full possession,
tinkering the gizzards of more cars* We discussed
chewed'Up gears (samples to hand), and the civil
population's okUtime views of the military* The
corporal told a tale of a clergyman in a Midland
town who, only a year ago, on the occasion of
some manoeuvres, preached a sermon warning his
flock to guard their womenfolk against the soldiers,

4 And when you think when you know/ said
the corporal, ' what life in those little towns really
is I ' He whistled*

'See that old landau/ said he, opening the
door of an ancient wreck jammed against a wall
4 That's two of our chaps' dressing-room* They
don't care to be billeted, so they sleep 'tween the
landau and the wall* It's handier for their work,
too* Work comes in at all hours* I wish I was
cavalry* There's some use in cursing a horse*'

Truly, it's an awful thing to belong to a service
where speech brings no alleviation*

4 You ! ' A private with callipers turned from
the bench by the window* 4 You'd die outside of a
garage* But what you said about civilians and
soldiers is all out of date now*'

The sergeant of Regulars permitted himself a
small, hidden smile* The private with the callipers
had been some twelve weeks a soldier.

28

GUNS AND SUPPLY

4 1 don't say it isn V said the corporal ' I'm
saying what it used to be/

'Weell/ the private screwed up the callipers,
'didn't you feel a little bit that way yourself
when you were a civilian ? '

4 1 I don't think I did/ The corporal was taken
aback* 4 1 don't think I ever thought about it/

4 Ah! There you are!' said the private, very drily*

Some one laughed in the shadow of the landau
dressingxroom* 'Anyhow, we're all in it now,
Private Percy/ said a voice*

There must be a good many thousand conversa^
tions of this kind being held all over England now*
adays* Our breed does not warble much about
patriotism or Fatherland, but it has a wonderful
sense of justice, even when its own shortcomings
are concerned*

We went over to the drilLshed to see the men paid*

The first man I ran across there was a sergeant
who had served in the Mounted Infantry in the
South African picnic that we used to call a war*
He had been a private chauffeur for some years
long enough to catch the professional look, but
was joyously reverting to service type again*

The men lined up, were called out, saluted
emphatically at the pay^table, and fell back with
their emoluments* They smiled at each other*

'An' it's all so funny/ murmured the master
builder in my ear* 'About a quarter no, less

29

THE NEW ARMY

than a quarter of what one 'ud be making on
one's own ! '

4 Fifty bob a week, cottage, and all found, I was*
An' only two cars to look after/ said a voice
behind* 'An' if I'd been asked simply asked

to lie down in the mud all the afternoon V

The speaker looked at his wages with awe. Some
one wanted to know, sotto voce, if 4 that was union
rates/ and the grin spread among the uniformed
experts* The joke, you will observe, lay in
situations thrown up, businesses abandoned, and
pleasant prospects cut short at the nod of duty*

4 Thank Heaven ! ' said one of them at last, 4 it's
too dark to work on those blessed Bulfords any
more toxday* We'll get ready for the concert/

But it was not too dark, half an hour later, for
my car to meet a big lorry storming back in the
wind and the wet from the northern camps* She
gave me London allowance half one inch between
hub and hub swung her corner like a Brooklands
professional, changed gear for the uphill with a sweet
click, and charged away* For aught I knew, she was
driven by an ex/fifty'bobxa'weekxa'Cottage'and'
all'found '*er, who next month might be dodging
shells with her and thinking it 4 all so funny*'

Horse, Foot, even the Guns may sometimes get
a little rest, but so long as men eat thrice a day
there is no rest for the Army Service Corps* They
carry the campaign on their all*sustaining backs*

30

IV

CANADIANS IN CAMP

Before you hit the buffalo, find out where the rest of the herd
is. Proverb.

THIS particular fold of downs behind Salis-
bury might have been a hump of prairie
near Winnipeg* The team that came over
the rise, widely spaced between pole-bar and whiffle-
trees, were certainly children of the prairie* They
shied at the car* Their driver asked them dis-
passionately what they thought they were doing,
anyway* They put their wise heads together, and
did nothing at all* Yes* Oh, yes ! said the driver*
They were Western horses* They weighed better
than twelve hundred apiece. He himself was from
Edmonton way* The Camp? Why, the camp
was right ahead along up this road* No chance
to miss it, and, 4 Sa-ay ! Look out for our lorries ! '
A fleet of them hove in sight going at the rate of
knots, and keeping their left with a conscientiousness
only learned when you come out of a country where
nearly all the Provinces (except British Columbia)

31

THE NEW ARMY

keep to the right* Every line of them, from steering-
wheel to brake-shoes, proclaimed their nationality*
Three perfectly efficient young men who were
sprinkling a golf 'green with sifted earth ceased their
duties to stare at them* Two riding-boys (also
efficient) on racehorses* their knees under their chins
and their saddles between their horses' ears, cantered
past on the turf* The rattle of the motors upset
their catsmeat, so one could compare their style of
riding with that of an officer loping along to over*
take a string of buck-wagons that were trotting
towards the horizon* The riding-boys have to
endure sore hardship nowadays* One gentleman
has already complained that his 4 private gallops f
are being cut up by gun-wheels and 4 irremediably
ruined/

Then more lorries* contractors' wagons* and in-
creasing vileness of the battered road-bed, till one
slid through a rude gate into a new world* of
canvas as far as the eye could reach, and beyond
that outlying clouds of tents* It is not a contingent
that Canada has sent, but an army horse, foot,
guns, engineers, and all details, fully equipped*
Taking that army's strength at thirty-three thou-
sand, and the Dominion's population at eight
million, the camp is Canada on the scale of one
to two hundred and forty an entire nation unrolled
across a few square miles of turf and tents and huts*

Here I could study at close hand 4 a Colony '

32

CANADIANS IN CAMP

yearning to shake off 'the British yoke/ For,
beyond question, they yearned the rank and file
unreservedly, the officers with more restraint but
equal fervour and the things they said about the
Yoke were simply lamentable*

From Nova Scotia to Victoria, and every city,
township, distributingxcentre, and divisional point
between ; from subtropical White River and sultry
Jackfish to the ultimate north that lies up beside
Alaska ; from Kootenay, and Nelson of the fruit^
farms, to Prince Edward Island, where motors are
not allowed; they yearned to shake it off, with
the dust of England from their feet, 4 at once and
some time before that/

I had been warned that when Armageddon came
the 4 Colonies ' would 4 revolt against the Mother
Country as one man'; but I had no notion I
should ever see the dread spectacle with my own
eyes or the 4 one man ' so tall !

Joking apart, the Canadian Army wants to get
to work* It admits that London is 'some city/
but says it did not take the trip to visit London
only, Armageddon, which so many people in
Europe knew was bound to come, has struck
Canada out of the blue, like a noonday murder
in a small town* How will they feel when they
actually view some of the destruction in France,
these men who are used to making and owning
their homes? And what effect will it have on
33 D

THE NEW ARMY

their land's outlook and development for the next
few generations ? Older countries may possibly slip
back into some sort of toleration. New peoples,
in their first serious war, like girls in their first real
love-affair, neither forget nor forgive* That is why
it pays to keep friends with the young.

And such young! They ran inches above all
normal standards, not in a few companies or
battalions, but through the whole corps; and it
was not easy to pick out foolish or even dull faces
among them. Details going about their business
through the camp's much mud; defaulters on
fatigue; orderlies, foot and mounted; the pro-
cession of lorry-drivers ; companies falling in for
inspection; battalions parading; brigades moving
off for manoeuvres ; batteries clanking in from the
ranges ; they were all supple, free, and intelligent ;
and moved with a lift and a drive that made one
sing for joy.

CAMP GOSSIP

Only a few months ago that entire collection
poured into Valcartier camp in pink shirts and
straw hats, desperately afraid they might not be in
time. Since then they have been taught several
things. Notably, that the more independent the
individual soldier, the more does he need fore"
thought and endless care when he is in bulk.

34

CANADIANS IN CAMP

4 Just because we were all used to looking after
ourselves in civil life/ said an officer, 4 we used to
send parties out without rations* And the parties
used to go, tool And we expected the boys to
look after their own feet* But we're wiser

now/

4 They're learning the same thing in the New
Army/ I said* 4 Company officers have to be
taught to be mothers and housekeepers and sanitary-
inspectors* Where do your men come from ? '

4 Tell me some place that they don't come from/
said he, and I could not* The men had rolled up
from everywhere between the Arctic circle and the
border, and I was told that those who could not
get into the first contingent were moving heaven and
earth and local politicians to get into the second*

4 There's some use in politics now/ that officer
reflected* 'But it's going to thin the voting 'lists
at home/

A good many of the old South African crowd
(the rest are coming) were present and awfully
correct* Men last met as privates between De
Aar and Belmont were captains and majors now*
while one lad who, to the best of his ability, had
painted Cape Town pink in those fresh years,
was a grim non-commissioned officer worth his
disciplined weight in dollars*

'/ didn't remind Dan of old times when he
turned up at Valcartier disguised as a respectable

35

THE NEW ARMY

citizen/ said my informant 'I just roped him in
for my crowd* He's a father to 'em* He knows/

4 And have you many cheery souls coming on ? '
I asked*

'Not many; but it's always the same with a
first contingent* You take everything that offers
and weed the bravoes out later/

'We don't weed/ said an officer of artillery*
'Any one who has had his passage paid for by
the Canadian Government stays with us till he
eats out of our hand* And he does* They make
the best men in the long run/ he added* I thought
of a friend of mine who is now disabusing two or
three ' old soldiers f in a Service corps of the idea
that they can run the battalion* and I laughed*
The Gunner was right* 4 Old soldiers/ after a
little loving care* become valuable and virtuous*

A company of Foot was drawn up under the
lee of a fir plantation behind us* They were a
miniature of their army as their army was of their
people* and one could feel the impact of strong
personality almost like a blow*

4 If you'd believe it/ said a cavalryman* 4 we're
forbidden to cut into that little wood'lot, yonder !
Not one stick of it may we have! We could
make shelters for our horses in a day out of that
stuff*'

4 But it's timber ! ' I gasped* 4 Sacred* tame trees ! '

4 Oh* we know what wood is ! They issue it
36

CANADIANS IN CAMP

to us by the pound* Wood to burn by the
pound I What's wood for, anyway ? '

4 And when do you think we shall be allowed
to go ? ' some one asked, not for the first time,

4 By and by/ said L 4 And then you'll have to
detail half your army to see that your equipment
isn't stolen from you/

4 What ! f cried an old Strathcona Horse* He
looked anxiously towards the horse-lines.

4 1 was thinking of your mechanical transport
and your travelling workshops and a few other
things that you've got/

I got away from those large men on their windy
hill'top, and slid through mud and past mechanical
transport and troops untold towards Lark Hill.
On the way I passed three fresh<cut pine sticks,
laid and notched one atop of the other to shore up
a caving bank. Trust a Canadian or a beaver
within gunshot of standing timber !

ENGINEERS AND APPLIANCES

Lark Hill is where the Canadian Engineers live,
in the midst of a profligate abundance of tools and
carts, pontoon wagons, field telephones, and other
mouth-watering gear. Hundreds of tin huts are
being built there, but quite leisurely, by contract
I noticed three workmen, at eleven o'clock of that

37

THE NEW ARMY

Monday forenoon, as drunk as Davy's sow, reel-
ing and shouting across the landscape* So far as
I could ascertain, the workmen do not work extra
shifts, nor even, but I hope this is incorrect, on
Saturday afternoons ; and I think they take their
full hour at noon these short days*

Every camp throws up men one has met at the
other end of the earth ; so, of course, the Engineer
C*O* was an ex-South African Canadian*

'Some of our boys are digging a trench over
yonder/ he said* 4 I'd like you to look at 'em*'

The boys seemed to average five feet ten inches,
with thirty-seven inch chests* The soil was un^
accommodating chalk*

4 What are you ? ' I asked of the first pickaxe*

'Private*'

'Yes, but before that?'

4 McGill (University understood)* Nineteen
twelve*'

4 And that boy with the shovel ? '

4 Queen's, I think* No ; he's Toronto*'

And thus the class in applied geology went on
half up the trench, under supervision of a Corporal-
Bachelor-of- Science with a most scientific biceps*
They were young ; they were beautifully fit, and
they were all truly thankful that they lived in these
high days*

Sappers, like sergeants, take care to make them-
selves comfortable* The corps were dealing with

38

CANADIANS IN CAMP

all sorts of little domestic matters in the way of
arrangements for baths, which are cruelly needed,
and an apparatus for depopulating shirts, which is
even more wanted* Healthy but unwashen men
sleeping on the ground are bound to develop
certain things which at first disgust them, but
later are accepted as an unlovely part of the game*
It would be quite easy to make bakehouses and
superheated steam fittings to deal with the trouble*
The huts themselves stand on brick piers, from one
to three feet above ground* The board floors are
not grooved or tongued, so there is ample ventila*-
tion from beneath ; but they have installed decent
cooking ranges and gas, and the men have already
made themselves all sorts of handy little labour^
saving gadgets* They would do this if they were
in the real desert* Incidentally, I came across a
delightful bit of racial instinct* A man had been
told to knock up a desk out of broken packing'
cases* There is only one type of desk in Canada
the rollerxtop, with three shelves each side the
knee-hole, characteristic sloping sides, raised back,
and long shelf in front of the writer* He re^
produced it faithfully, barring, of course, the roller^
top ; and the thing leaped to the eye out of its
English office surroundings* The Engineers do
not suffer for lack of talents* Their senior officers
appear to have been the heads, and their juniors
the assistants, in big concerns that wrestle with

39

THE NEW ARMY

unharnessed nature* (There is a tale of the build-
ing of a bridge in Valcartier Camp which is not
bad hearing,) The rank and file include miners ;
road* trestle, and bridge men ; iron construction
men who* among other things* are steeplejacks;
whole castes of such as deal in high explosives for
a living; loco<drivers, superintendents* too* for
aught I know* and a solid packing of selected
machinists* mechanics* and electricians* Unluckily*
they were all a foot or so too tall for me to tell
them that* even if their equipment escaped at the
front, they would infallibly be raided for their men*

AN UNRELATED DETACHMENT

I left McGill, Queen's, and Toronto still digging
in their trench, which another undergraduate,
mounted and leading a horse, went out of his way
to jump standing* My last glimpse was of a little
detachment, with five or six South African ribbons
among them, who were being looked over by an
officer* No one thought it strange that they should
have embodied themselves and crossed the salt
seas independently as 4 So-and-So's Horse/ (It is
best to travel with a title these days,) Once arrived,
they were not at all particular, except that they
meant to join the Army, and the lonely batch was
stating its qualifications as Engineers*

40

CANADIANS IN CAMP

4 They get over any way and every way/ said
my companion* ' Swimming, I believe/

'But who was the So-and-So that they were
christened after ? ' I asked*

4 1 guess he was the man who financed 'em or
grub-staked 'em while they were waiting* He
may be one of 'em in that crowd now ; or he may
be a provincial magnate at home getting another
bunch together*'

THE VANGUARD OF A NATION

Then I went back to the main camp for a last
look at that wonderful army* where the tin-roofed
messes take French conversation lessons with the
keen-faced French-Canadian officers, and where
one sees esprit-de-corps in the making* Nowhere
is local sentiment stronger than in Canada* East
and West* lake and maritime provinces* prairie and
mountain* fruit district and timber lands they each
thrill to it* The West keeps one cold blue open-
air eye on the townful East* Winnipeg sits
between* posing alternately as sophisticated metro-
polis and simple prairie* Alberta* of the thousand
horses* looks down from her high-peaked saddle
on all who walk on their feet; and British
Columbia thanks God for an equable climate* and
that she is not like Ottawa* full of politicians and
frozen sludge* Quebec* unassailable in her years

41

THE NEW ARMY

and experience, smiles tolerantly on the Nova
Scotian, for he has a history too, and asks Montreal
if any good thing can come out of Brandon, Moose
Jaw, or Regina* They discuss each other out'
rageously, as they know each other intimately,
over four thousand miles of longitude their fathers,
their families, and all the connections* Which is
useful when it comes to sizing up the merits of a
newly-promoted non-commissioned officer or the
capacities of a quarter-master*

As their Army does and suffers, and its record
begins to blaze, fierce pride of regiment will be
added to local love and the national pride that
backs and envelops all But that pride is held in
very severe check now; for they are neither
provinces nor tribes but a welded people fighting
in the War of Liberty* They permit themselves
to hope that the physique of their next contingent
will not be worse than that of the present* They
believe that their country can send forward a certain
number of men and a certain number behind that,
all equipped to a certain scale* Of discomforts
endured, of the long learning and relearning and
waiting on, they say nothing* They do not hint
what they will do when their hour strikes, though
they more than hint their longing for that hour*
In all their talk I caught no phrase that could be
twisted into the shadow of a boast or any claim
to superiority, even in respect to their kit and outfit ;

42

CANADIANS IN CAMP

no word or implication of self-praise for any sacrifice
made or intended* It was their rigid humility that
impressed one as most significant and, perhaps,
most menacing for such as may have to deal with
this vanguard of an armed Nation*

43

V

INDIAN TROOPS

Larai mefi laddu nahin batte (War is not sugar-plums).
Hindi Proverb.

WORKING from the East to the West of
England, through a countryside alive
with troops of all arms, the car came at
dusk into a cathedral town entirely inhabited by
one type of regiment. The telegraplvoffice was
an orderly jam of solid, large, made men, with
years of discipline behind them and the tan of
Indian suns on their faces Englishmen still so
fresh from the troopships that one of them asked
me, 4 What's the day o' the month ? ' They were
advising friends of their arrival in England, or
when they might be expected on short leave at
the week's end ; and the fresh-faced telegraph girls
behind the grilles worked with six pairs of hands
apiece and all the goodwill and patience in the
world to back them. That same young woman
who, with nothing to do, makes you wait ten

44

INDIAN TROOPS

minutes for a penny stamp while she finishes a
talk with a lady-friend, will, at a crisis, go on till
she drops, and keep her temper throughout 4 Well,
if that's her village/ I heard one of the girls say
to an anxious soul, 'I tell you that that will be her
telegraph-office* You leave it to me. She 9 II get
it all right/

He backed out, and a dozen more quietly took
his place. Their regiments hailed from all the old
known stations of the East and beyond that into
the Far East again. They cursed their cool barrack
accommodation ; they rejoiced in the keen autumn
smells, and paraded the long street all filled with
4 Europe shops '; while their officers and their
officers' wives, and, I think, mothers who had
come down to snatch a glimpse of their boys,
crowded the hotels, and the little unastonished
Anglo-Indian children circulated round the knees
of big friends they had made aboardship and
asked, ' Where are you going now ? '

One caught scraps of our old gipsy talk names
of boarding-houses, agents' addresses: 4 Milly stays
with mother, of course/ 4 I'm taking Jack down
to school to-morrow. It's past half-term, but that
doesn't matter nowadays ' ; and cheery farewells
between men and calm-eyed women. Except for
the frocks, it might have been an evening assembly
at any station bandstand in India.

Outside, on the surging pavements, a small boy

45

THE NEW ARMY
cried: * Paper! EveniV paper!' Then seductively:

4 What ? ' I said, thinking my ears had cheated
me*

4 Dekko! Kargus!' said he. ('Look here!
Paper!')

4 Why on earth d'you say that ? '

4 Because the men like it/ he replied, and slapped
an evening paper (no change for a penny) into the
hand of a man in a helmet

Who shall say that the English are not
adaptable?

The car swam bonnet-deep through a mile of
troops; and a mile up the road one could hear
the deep hum of all those crowded streets that the
cathedral bells were chiming oven It was only
one small block of Anglo-India getting ready to
take its place in the all-devouring Line.

SCREW.GUNS

An hour later at (Shall we ever be able to

name people and places outright again ?) the wind
brought up one whiff one unmistakable whiff
of ghu Somewhere among the English pines
that, for the moment, pretended to be the lower
slopes of the Dun, there were native troops. A
mule squealed in the dark and set off half-a-dozen
46

INDIAN TROOPS

others* It was screw ^ guns batteries of them,
waiting their turn also at the game* Morning
showed them in their immaculate lines as though
they had just marched in from Jutogh little* low
guns with their ammunition; very big English
gunners in disengaged attitudes which, nevertheless*
did not encourage stray civilians to poke and peer
into things ; and the native drivers all busied over
their charges* True, the wind was bitter, and
many of the drivers had tied up their heads, but
so one does at Quetta in the cold weather not
to mention Peshawur and, said a naick of drivers:
4 It is not the cold for which we have no liking*
It is the wet* The English air is good, but water
falls at all seasons* Yet notwithstanding, we of
this battery (and, oh, the pride men can throw into
a mere number!) have not lost one mule* Neither
at sea nor on land have we one lost* That can be
shown, sahib/

Then one heard the deep racking tobaco>cough
in the lee of a tent where four or five men
Kangra folk by the look of them were drinking
tobacco out of a cow's horn* Their own country's
tobacco, be sure, for English tobacco* * * * But
there was no need to explain* Who would have
dreamed to smell bazar^tobacco on a south country
golf links ?

A large proportion of the men are, of course,
Sikhs* to whom tobacco is forbidden ; the Havildar

47

THE NEW ARMY

Major himself was a Sikh of the Sikhs, He spoke,
of all things in this strange world, of the late Mr,
M, McAuliffe's monumental book on the Sikh
religion, saying, not without warrant, that McAulif f e
Sahib had translated into English much of the
Holy Book the great Grunth Sahib that lives
at Amritzar, He enlarged, too, on the ancient
prophecy among the Sikhs that a hatted race
should, some day come out of the sea and lead
them to victory all the earth over. So spoke Bir
Singh, erect and enormous beneath the grey
English skies. He hailed from a certain place called
Banalu, near Patiala, where many years ago two
Sikh soldiers executed a striking but perfectly just
vengeance on certain villagers who had oppressed
their young brother, a cultivator. They had gone
to the extreme limits of abasement and conciliation.
This failing, they took leave for a week-end and
slew the whole tribe of their enemies. The story
is buried in old Government reports, but when Bir
Singh implied that he and his folk were orthodox
I had no doubt of it. And behind him stood
another giant, who knew, for his village was but a
few miles up the Shalimar road, every foot of
Lahore city. He brought word that there had been
great floods at home, so that the risen Ravi river
had touched the very walls of Runjit Singh's Fort,
And that was only last rains and, behold ! here
he was now in England waiting orders to go to

48

INDIAN TROOPS

this fight which, he understood, was not at all a
small fight, but a fight of fights, in which all the
world and 4 our Raj ' was engaged. The trouble in
India was that all the young men the mere jiwans
wanted to come out at once, which, he said, was
manifestly unjust to older men, who had waited
so long* However, merit and patience had secured
their reward, and the battery was here, and it would
do the hot jiwans no harm to stay at home, and be
zealous at drill until orders came for them in their
turn, 4 Young men think that everything good in
this world is theirs by right, sahib/

Then came the big, still English gunners, who
are trained to play with the little guns* They took
one such gun and melted it into trifling pieces of
not more than a hundred and fifty pounds each,
and reassembled it, and explained its innermost
heart till even a layman could understand* There
is a lot to understand about screw^guns specially
the new kind* But the gunner of to-day, like his
ancestor, does not talk much, except in his own
time and place, when he is as multitudinously
amazing as the Blue Marine*

THE MULE LINES

We went over to see the mule lines* I detest the
whole generation of these parrot-mouthed hybrids,
American, Egyptian, Andalusian, or up-country:

49 E

THE NEW ARMY

so it gave me particular pleasure to hear a Pathan
telling one chestnut beast who objected to having
its mane hogged any more, what sort of lady 'horse
his mamma had been. But qua animals, they were
a lovely lot, and had long since given up blowing
and finicking over English fodder,

'Is there any sickness? Why is yonder mule
lying down ? ' I demanded, as though all the lines
could not see I was a shuddering amateur*

4 There is no sickness, sahib? That mule lies
down for his own pleasure* Also, to get out of
the wind. He is very eleven He is from Hindu*
stan/ said the man with the horse-clippers*

'Andthou?'

4 1 am a Pathan/ said he with impudent grin and
true border cock of the turban, and he did me the
honour to let me infer.

The lines were full of talk as the men went over
their animals* They were not worrying themselves
over this new country of Belait* It was the
regular gossip of food and water and firewood, and
where So-and-so had hid the curry-comb*

Talking of cookery, the orthodox men have
been rather put out by English visitors who come
to the cook-houses and stare directly at the food
while it is being prepared* Sensible men do not
object to this, because they know that these
Englishmen have no evil intention nor any evil eye;
but sometimes a narrowsouled purist (toothache
50

INDIAN TROOPS

or liver makes a man painfully religious) will 4 spy
strangers/ and insist on the strict letter of the law,
and then every one who wishes to be orthodox
must agree with him on an empty stomach, too
and wait till a fresh mess has been cooked*
This is taklifSi burden for where the intention
is good and war is afoot much can and should be
overlooked* Moreover, this war is not like any
other wan It is a war of our Raj 4 everybody's
war/ as they say in the bazaars* And that is
another reason why it does not matter if an
Englishman stares at one's food* This I gathered
in small pieces after watering time when the mules
had filed up to the troughs in the twilight, hundreds
of them, and the drivers grew discursive on the
way to the lines*

The last I saw of them was in the early cold
morning, all in marching order, jinking and jingling
down a road through woods.

4 Where are you going ? '

4 God knows ! '

THE INN OF GOODxBYES

It might have been for exercise merely, or it
might be down to the sea and away to the front
for the battle of ' Our Raj*' The quiet hotel where
people sit together and talk in earnest strained pairs
is well used to such departures* The officers of
51

THE NEW ARMY

a whole Division the raw cuts of their tent-circles
lie still urihealed on the links dined there by
scores ; mothers and relatives came down from the
uttermost parts of Scotland for a last look at their
boys, and found beds goodness knows where:
very quiet little weddings, too, set out from its
doors to the church opposite. The Division went
away a century of weeks ago by the road that the
mulexbattery took Many of the civilians who
pocketed the wills signed and witnessed in the
smoking-room are full-blown executors now ; some
of the brides are widows.

And it is not nice to remember that when the
hotel was so filled that not even another pleading
mother could be given a place in which to lie down
and have her cry out not at all nice to remember
that it never occurred to any of the comfortable
people in the large but sparsely inhabited houses
around that they might have offered a night's
lodging, even to an unintroduced stranger.

GREATHEART AND CHRISTIANA

There were hospitals up the road preparing and
being prepared for the Indian wounded. In one of
these lay a man of, say, a Biluch regiment, sorely
hit. Word had come from his colonel in France to
the colonel's wife in England that she should seek
till she found that very man and got news from his
52

THE INDIAN ARMY

very mouth news to send to his family and
village* She found him at last, and he was very
bewildered to see her there, because he had left her
and her child on the verandah of the bungalow,
long and long ago, when he and his colonel and the
regiment went down to take ship for the wan
How had she come? Who had guarded her
during her train-journey of so many days ? And,
above all, how had the baba endured that sea
which caused strong men to collapse ? Not till all
these matters had been cleared up in fullest detail
did Greatheart on his cot permit his colonel's wife
to waste one word on his own insignificant
concerns. And that she should have wept filled
him with real trouble* Truly, this is the war of
'OurRajP

53

VI
TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

To excuse oneself to oneself is human : but to excuse
oneself to one's children is Hell. Arabic Proverb.

BILLETED troops are difficult to get at
There are thousands of them in a little old
town by the side of an even older park up
the London Road, but to find a particular battalion
is like ferreting unstopped burrows.

'The Umpty-Umpth, were you looking for?'
said a private in charge of a side-car. 4 We're the
Eenty^Eenth* 'Only came in last week I've
never seen this place before* It's pretty* Hold
on 1 There's a postman* He'll know/

He, too, was in khaki, bowed between mail-
bags, and his accent was of a far and coaly
county*

'I'm none too sure,' said he, 'but 1 think I
saw '

Here a third man cut in*

4 Yon's t' battalion, marchin' into t' park now*
Roon ! Happen tha'll catch 'em*'

54

TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

They turned out to be Territorials with a history
behind them; but that I didn't know till later;
and their band and cyclists* Very polite were
those rear^rank cyclists who pushed their loaded
machines with one vast hand apiece*

They were strangers* they said* They had only
come here a few days ago* But they knew the
South well* They had been in Gloucestershire*
which was a very nice southern place*

Then their battalion* I hazarded* was of
northern extraction ?

They admitted that I might go as far as that ;
their speech betraying their native town at every
rich word*

4 Huddersfield* of course?' I said* to make
them out with it*

'Bolton/ said one at last* Being in uniform
the pitman could not destroy the impertinent
civilian*

'Ah* Bolton!' I returned* 4 All cotton* aren't
you?'

4 Some coal/ he answered gravely* There is
notorious rivalry 'twixt coal and cotton in Bolton*
but I wanted to see him practise the self-control
that the Army is always teaching*

As I have said* he and his companion were
most polite, but the total of their information*
boiled and peeled* was that they had just come
from Bolton way ; might at any moment be sent

55

THE NEW ARMY

somewhere else, and they liked Gloucestershire in
the south* A spy could not have learned much
less*

The battalion halted, and moved off by com*
panies for further evolutions. One could see they
were more than used to drill and arms ; a hardened,
thick-necked, thin-flanked, deep-chested lot, dealt
with quite faithfully by their sergeants, and alto^
gether abreast of their work. Why, then, this
reticence ? What had they to be ashamed of, these
big Bolton folk without an address ? Where was
their orderly-room ?

There were many orderly-rooms in the little old
town, most of them in bye-lanes less than one car
wide* I found what I wanted, and this was north-
country all over a private who volunteered to
steer me to headquarters through the tricky southern
streets. He was communicative, and told me a
good deal about typhoid-inoculation and musketry
practice, which accounted for only six companies
being on parade. But surely they could not have
been ashamed of that.

GUARDING A RAILWAY

I unearthed their skeleton at last in a peaceful,
gracious five-hundred-year-old house that looked
on to lawns and cut hedges bounded by age-old
red brick walls such a perfumed and dreaming

56

TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

place as one would choose for the setting of some
even^pulsed English love^tale of the days before
the wan

Officers were billeted in the low^ceiled, shiny*
floored rooms full of books and flowers*

4 And now/ I asked, when I had told the tale of
the uncommunicative cyclist, ' what is the matter
with your battalion ? '

They laughed cruelly at me* 4 Matter I* said
they* 'We're just off three months of guarding
railways* After that a man wouldn't trust his own
mother* You don't mean to say our cyclists let
you know where we've come from last ? '

4 No, they didn't,' I replied* 4 That was what
worried me* I assumed you'd all committed
murders, and had been sent here to live it down/

Then they told me what guarding a line really
means* How men wake and walk, with only
express troop-trains to keep them company, all the
night long on windy embankments or under still
more windy bridges ; how they sleep behind three
sleepers up-ended or a bit of tin, or* if they are
lucky, in a platelayer's hut ; how their food comes
to them slopping across the squareheaded ties that
lie in wait to twist a man's ankle after dark $ how
they stand in blown coal-dust of goods 'yards trying
to watch five lines of trucks at once ; how fools of
all classes pester the lonely pickets, whose orders
are to hold up motors for inquiry, and then write

57

THE NEW ARMY

silly letters to the War Office about it* How
nothing ever happens through the long weeks but
infallibly would if the patrols were taken off* And
they had one refreshing story of a workman who
at six in the morning, which is no auspicious hour
to jest with Lancashire, took a short cut to his
work by ducking under some goods^wagons, and
when challenged by the sentry replied, posturing
on all fours, 4 Boo, I'm a German ! ' Whereat the
upright sentry fired, unfortunately missed him, and
then gave him the butt across his ass's head, so
that his humour, and very nearly his life, terminated*
After which the sentry was seldom seen to smile,
but frequently heard to murmur, 4 Ah should hev
slipped t' baggonet into him/

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

4 So you see/ said the officers in conclusion,
4 you mustn't be surprised that our men wouldn't
tell you much/

4 1 begin to see/ I said* ' How many of you are
coal and how many cotton ? f

'Two'thirds coal and one^third cotton, roughly*
It keeps the men deadly keen* An operative isn't
going to give up while a pitman goes on ; and very
much vice versa.'

4 That's class-prejudice/ said I*

4 It's most useful/ said they* The officers them"

58

TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

selves seemed to be interested in coal or cotton, and
had known their men intimately on the civil side*
If your orderly-room sergeant, or your quarter-
master has been your trusted head clerk or foreman
for ten or twelve years, and if eight out of a dozen
sergeants have controlled pitmen and machinists,
above and below ground, and eighty per cent of
these pitmen and machinists are privates in the
companies, your regiment works with something
of the precision of a big business.

It was all new talk to me, for I had not yet met
a Northern Territorial battalion with the strong
pride of its strong town behind it. Where were
they when the war came ? How had they equipped
themselves ? I wanted to hear the tale. It was
worth listening to as told with North- Country joy
of life and the doing of things in that soft down-
country house of the untroubled centuries. Like
every one else, they were expecting anything but
war. 'Hadn't even begun their annual camp*
Then the thing came, and Bolton rose as one man
and woman to fit out its battalion. There was a
lady who wanted a fairly large sum of money for
the men's extra footgear. She set aside a morning
to collect it, and inside the hour came home with
nearly twice her needs, and spent the rest of the
time trying to make people take back fivers, at least,
out of tenners. And the big hauling firms flung
horses and transport at them and at the Govern-

59

THE NEW ARMY

ment, often refusing any price, or, when it was
paid, turning it into the war funds* What the
battalion wanted it had but to ask for. Once it
was short of, say, towels* An officer approached
the head of a big firm, with no particular idea he
would get more than a few dozen from that quarter*

4 And how many towels d 'you want ? ' said the
head of the firm* The officer suggested a globular
thousand*

4 1 think you'll do better with twelve hundred/
was the curt answer* 4 They're ready out yonder*
Get 'em/

And in this style Bolton turned out her battalion*
Then the authorities took it and strung it by threes
and fives along several score miles of railway track :
and it had only just been reassembled, and it had
been inoculated for typhoid* Consequently, they
said (but all officers are like mothers and motorcar
owners), it wasn't up to what it would be in a
little time* In spite of the cyclist, I had had a
good look at the deep ^ chested battalion in the
park, and after getting their musketry figures, 1 it
seemed to me that very soon it might be worth
looking at by more prejudiced persons than myself*

1 Thanks to the miniature rifle clubs fostered by Lord
Roberts a certain number of recruits in all the armies come to
their regiments with a certain knowledge of sighting, rifle*
handling, and the general details of good shooting, especially
at snap and disappearing work.

60

TERRITORIAL BATTALIONS

The next day I read that this battalion's regular
battalion in the field had distinguished itself by
a piece of work which, in other wars, would have
been judged heroic* Bolton will read it, not
without remarks, and other towns who love
Bolton, more or less, will say that if all the truth
could come out their regiments had done as well*
Anyway, the result will be more men pitmen,
milLhands, clerks, checkers, weighers, winders, and
hundreds of those sleek, welLgroomed business-
chaps whom one used to meet in the big Midland
hotels, protesting that war was out of date* These
latter develop surprisingly in the camp atmosphere*
I recall one raging in his army shirt - sleeves at
a comrade who had derided his principles* ' I am
a blanky pacificist/ he hissed, 4 and I'm proud of
it, and and I'm going to make you one before
I've finished with you I '

THE SECRET OF THE SERVICES

Pride of city, calling, class, and creed imposes
standards and obligations which hold men above
themselves at a pinch, and steady them through
long strain* One meets it in the New Army at
every turn, from the picked Territorials who slipped
across Channel last night to the six-week-old
Service battalion maturing itself in mud* It is

61

THE NEW ARMY

balanced by the ineradicable English instinct to
understate, detract, and decry to mask the thing
done by loudly drawing attention to the things
undone* The more one sees of the camps the
more one is filled with facts and figures of joyous
significance, which will become clearer as the days
lengthen ; and the less one hears of the endurance,
decency, self-sacrifice, and utter devotion which
have made, and are hourly making, this wonderful
new world* The camps take this for granted
else why should any man be there at all? He
might have gone on with his business, or watched
4 soccer/ But having chosen to do his bit, he
does it, and talks as much about his motives as
he would of his religion or his love-affairs* He
is eloquent over the shortcomings of the authorities,
more pessimistic as to the future of his next
neighbour battalion than would be safe to print,
and lyric on his personal needs baths and drying*
rooms for choice* But when the grousing gets
beyond a certain point say at three a.m, in
steady wet, with the tent-pegs drawing like false
teeth the nephew of the insurance-agent asks the
cousin of the baronet to inquire of the son of the
fried-fish vendor what the stevedore's brother and
the tutor of the public school joined the Army
/or* Then they sing 4 Somewhere the Sun is
Shining' till the Sergeant Ironmonger's assistant
cautions them to drown in silence or the Lieutenant

62

TERRITORIAL . BAITAL'ONS

Telephone"appliances"manufacturer will speak to
them in the morning*

The New armies have not yet evolved their
typical private, n**oo., and officer, though one
can see them shaping* They are humorous
because, for all our long faces, we are the only
genuinely humorous race on earth; but they all
know for true that there are no excuses in the
Service* 'If there were? said a three "month"
old under ^gardener ^private to me, 'what 'ud
become of Discipline ? f

They are already setting standards for the
coming millions, and have sown little sprouts of
regimental tradition which may grow into age-old
trees* In one corps, for example, though no
dubbin is issued a man loses his name for parad"
ing with dirty boots* He looks down scornfully
on the next battalion where they are not expected
to achieve the impossible* In another an ex"
Guards sergeant brought 'em up by hand the drill
is rather high"class* In a third they fuss about
records for route^marching, and men who fall out
have to explain themselves to their sweating com"
panions* This is entirely right* They are all
now in the Year One, and the meanest of them
may be an ancestor of whom regimental posterity
will say : 4 There were giants in those days ! '

63

ARMY

THE REAL QyESTION

This much we can realise, even though we are
so close to it The old safe instinct saves us from
triumph and exultation* But what will be the
position in years to come of the young man who
has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from
this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his
family, and, above all, what of his descendants,
when the books have been closed and the last
balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every
hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district,
province, and Dominion throughout the Empire ?

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